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Indian jamboree on Oz cruise turns wild, passengers see red

Australian passengers aboard the Royal Caribbean International cruise have complained against a group of 1,500 Indian men for holding wild parties featuring scantily clad dancers and taking over pool decks, bars and buffets. The group, employees of a chewing tobacco company, was travelling for a conference in Sydney.

TNN | Updated: Oct 4, 2018, 10:45 IST

Highlights

About 1,300 Indian men, who reportedly work for a chewing tobacco manufacturer, boarded the Royal Caribbean International cruise in Sydney for a conference on September 6.

It was supposed to be a relaxing cruise. But for passengers on board the Voyager of the Seas, it turned into the opposite as 1,300 Indian men reportedly overran the ship, holding wild parties featuring scantily clad dancers and taking over pool decks, bars and buffets.

Some Australian passengers narrated their holiday misadventure to a TV network.

Over the next three nights, passengers said, they brought burlesque dancers dressed as Playboy bunnies, partied on the decks and reportedly harassed young girls by filming them on their phones.

“It was almost like a huge bucks (bachelor) party,” Sydney passenger Cassandra Riini told Australian Nine Network’s A Current Affair. “Their doors would be open and you would walk past and be like, ‘What am I going to be looking at when I walk past this door?’” The men had brought “crates and crates” of their own food on the ship and apparently also took over the ship’s outdoor screens, which played their company’s videos.

Games like bingo, a popular pastime on cruises, were cancelled because the passengers were more interested in the cabaret. The ship has a capacity of 3,000 passengers. Royal Caribbean International is reported to have given afull refund to passengers.

‘Why didn’t the Australians complain on the ship itself?’

Ratna Chadha, CEO of Tirun Travel Marketing, which is the exclusive India representative of Royal Caribbean International, defended the Indian group. Chadha told TOI: “Some Australians complained of wild partying by the Indian group. The Indian group was appropriately dressed and didn’t create any nuisance. The pool area was shut down after the mandated time. Even if the Indian group created a nuisance, why didn’t the Australians complain to the authorities on the ship itself ? They complained about it after the trip got over. The ship is always at liberty to take control of situations if these are not in sync with the guest conduct policy. But there was no action required as the group was within the ship’s mandate. Of the 3,900 passengers on the ship, it seems that only six Australians had an issue.”

The Indian company had booked the tickets for the Voyager of the Seas cruise ship from Tirun Travel Marketing.

A passenger on the ship, Christine Weyling, said they should have been informed beforehand. “It was crazy-…little Playboy bunny outfits, you know this is a family boat. I think that they should have notified us that there was a big group that had been booked.”

Indian travel professionals who organise outings for large corporate groups are not surprised. “The men are away from their families, nobody is watching them and the only question they have is ‘how is the nightlife’,” says a travel operator in south Delhi.

She recounts one such trip to Thailand, with a 600-plus group of Indian executives and dealers, when a few of the men tried to grab the waist of a stewardess on a Sri Lankan Airlines flight. They and the tour operator were hauled up by authorities in Colombo where there was a stopover.

“Of course, once we were in Bangkok the only thing they wanted to know was where could they get women,” says Kavita. “For some, it is the first time they are traveling by air and they expect everything to be a fantasy,” she says.

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